“Surface winds and wind-driven ocean currents have large effects on temperatures in and around the northeast Pacific Ocean; they dominate the overall temperature variability and also account for a large fraction of the warming trend,” Jim Johnstone, lead author of the study, said in a statement. “West Coast sea surface and coastal air temperatures evolved in lockstep with changing patterns of atmospheric pressure and winds.”

To the Associated Press, Johnstone said that these findings show that “there are other factors stronger than the greenhouse forcing that is affecting those temperatures.”